As a Boy Scout growing up in Lenoir County, Wayne Brock was told by his scoutmaster Jack Everett to always set goals and stick to them.

“He just encouraged me to set a goal and to stick to it and to go after it, and it’s been something that’s stuck with me in my entire life,” Brock said.

Fast forward 50 years to August, and Everett was sitting at a table in Phoenix, Ariz., hearing his former charge thank him before an audience of about 4,000 people, as he made his first speech as the newest chief scout executive for the Boy Scouts of America.

Brock spoke during the BSA’s annual Top Hands Conference of adult leaders.

“They must have clapped for five minutes and then they all wanted to shake hands with me,” Everett, now 83, said while sitting in his Kinston home last week.

The living room was adorned with a Christmas wreath, a gift from Brock.

“He really has been so gracious and so thankful,” Everett’s wife, Marlene, said.

Brock, a 1966 graduate of South Lenoir High School, earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1965, the first in Troop 453 to achieve Scouting’s highest honor.

“He started his way off at the bottom and he worked his way up to Eagle,” Everett said.

Everett started Troop 453 in 1956 through Kinston’s First FWB Church, of which he was a member — church leaders asked for volunteers to start a Scout troop and Everett stepped forward.

The troop had up to 50 boys during Everett’s tenure.

Brock said he had not spoken with Everett after he left Scouting, but “got to thinking of” his former scoutmaster while preparing his Top Hands speech.

“Part of my speech was making sure that we thank and honor the volunteers who work in this program so tirelessly every day,” he said.

Everett said he “felt real good that he remembered me.”

Brock, who has been a Scout executive at the district and council level throughout the Southeastern U.S., had fond memories of Everett.

“He was just one of those great guys who made you feel good about yourself, who made you want to achieve things and to try to accomplish (things) in your life,” Brock said.

Everett, a native of Bath, was not a Boy Scout — he had to take over the family farm after his father passed away.

He graduated from Pantego High School in 1949 and attended N.C. State, but had to leave school because the funds to continue were not available.

He joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in the U.S. and Canada during the Korean War. He was in the Signal Corps and later moved to Army intelligence.

Everett had just left the Army and was living in California when he applied for a job at DuPont, which had just opened its Kinston textile plant.

He was hired and worked at the Kinston plant for 34 years. He retired in 1987.

Everett was Troop 453’s scoutmaster from 1956 through the late 1960s. He went on to become commissioner of the South Caswell District in Lenoir County, and founded a local Explorer Scout post.

Explorers is open to Scouts age 16 and up, and gives them the opportunity to work with local entities such as police departments. Everett’s Explorers worked with the church.

Everett left the Explorer post in the late 1970s.

He is also a founding member and deacon at Westside FWB Church, which started in his and Marlene’s home, and is now on Lynn Drive near Bill Fay Park.

“I thoroughly enjoyed Scouting,” Everett said. “I really did.”

Free Press Managing Editor Bryan C. Hanks contributed to this report. David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or David.Anderson@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at DavidFreePress.